HISTORY, ESSAYS, ORATIONS, AND OTHER DOCUMENTS OF THE SIXTH GENERAL CONFERENCE OF THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE, Held in New York, October 2-12, 1873. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 280 PREFACE. THE Executive Committee of the Evangelical Alliance of the United States, in making arrangements for the Sixth General Conference, confided the preparation of the Programme and the selection of writers and speakers to a special committee, consisting of the following named persons: REV. WILLIAM ADAMS, D.D., REV. JAMES M'COSH, D.D., LL.D., REV. S. I. PRIME, D.D., REV. G. W. SAMSON, D.D., REV. NOAH HUNT SCHENCK, D.D., REV. E. A. WASHBURN, D.D. The Committee on the Programme having, with protracted deliberation, matured the plan of the Conference and chosen the themes to be discussed, sought the men best fitted in their judgment to treat these subjects, for the defense and advancement of evangelical truth. About one hundred men, from various parts of the world, eminent for learning, ability, and worth, holding high rank in theology, philosophy, science, and literature, were thus brought together, with the richest fruits of their labors, and animated by a common impulse to contribute each his part to the power and usefulness of the great Conference. The result was far beyond the expectations of the Committee. These essays and orations, discussing almost every important theological, religious, and moral question of the age, were eagerly listened to from morning till night, for ten consecutive days, by thousands of sympathizing hearers in this city, during a season of financial distress, and then were multiplied, through secular and religious periodicals, among millions of readers. It is safe to say that the utterances of a religious assembly were never received with more profound respect by so great a number of attentive minds. It was, therefore, an immediate duty to gather into a permanent volume the productions of the Conference. To this end the Committee on the Programme confided the preparation of this volume to the General Secretary of the Conference, Rev. S. Irenæus Prime, D.D., and to the Honorary and Acting Corresponding Secretary of the United States Alliance, Rev. Philip Schaff, D.D. To the former was committed "the charge of the general arrangement and typographical character of the volume, the preface, historical sketch, and general index;" and to the latter" the charge of the papers delivered before the Conference, their classification, and all the details pertaining to their introduction into the volume." This devolved on Dr. Schaff the labor of translating papers from foreign languages, revising them all, and the greatest care in see |